Bulgaria

So the passport came to the school in the morning on Tuesday; just as I hoped it would.  I had invited people to come to the chicken shack for a little send off meeting.  A bit of trouble about the excursion was a message I received at 3 in the afternoon—6 hours before the bus would leave.  My host in Moscow sent a message that she was sick with the flu, as her sister had been some days earlier.  She was afraid to bring me into a den of sickness.  Her alternative was an acquaintance nearby who rented rooms for $600/month.
Having no other choice—and since $600 was the lowest of any rate I had heard—I asked her to check it out.  Unfortunately, there were no rooms available at this time.  Four years ago, I had stayed at a hostel in Moscow, so I looked some up.  By now it is 7:15—15 minutes before I wanted to leave for the bus station/street (the bus simply left from the street in front of a travel agency).  The first hostel was all full for this weekend; I will be arriving on Friday night.  The second one had places available—a 14-person mixed gender dormitory.  I took it—esp. since it was only 14 Euros($25)/night.  I was in contact with my host via Skype; she read my plans and sent me two sets of directions from the train station to the hostel.
The bus left on time—9:00 pm.  There were only 3 other passengers.  I went straight to the back where there were 5 seats across—no toilet.  Visions of a lovely night’s sleep during the 9-hour trip to Skopje, Macedonia crowded out any worries.  I relaxed, put my bag on the seat, took my shoes off, and moved to a seat nearby with a reading light shining brightly.  I wrote about half a page in my journal when I noticed that we had stopped and a couple people had come on board.  Then I noticed that they were moving into the back seats, out the corner of my eye, I saw a long line of new passengers walking down that aisle.  “Hmmm…I guess I should get my %^$# (stuff) together.”  I put my journal in one bag.  As the population of the rear of the bus had increased 500% percent in 45 seconds, I threw my shoes into the back, with the visions of a comfy nap still refusing to die.  Now I had to squeeze into the back seat in the corner.  Pretty soon the entire bus was packed and people were arguing about where they were going to sit. So…the nap is gone.
At the border of Macedonia, I saw an officer walk down the aisle looking at passports and handing them back.  He finally got to me, way in the back, looked at it, turned around and walked off the bus.  “What was this?” I thought, “Is he taking only mine for further investigation?  Am I the only person from the US here?”  In another minute, the bus started up and began to leave.
“Whoa!  Whoa!  He’s got my passport!” I said loudly, not quite shouting. I was worried that mine was the only one with the border guard and the bus was leaving.  Several people smiled and looked back at me.  A couple riders kindly made motions slapping my worries away like flies.  To my confusion, the guard had taken EVERYONE’S passport.  We were moving the bus out of the way.  Soon, the passports were back…routinely to be taken again at the other side of the border.  So we continued, and I slept sitting up for a bit.  When the bus emptied of a few, I lay down on my bag and fell into a deep sleep.  After a while, I woke to someone tap, tap, tapping me with a soft stick.
“Yeah, yeah,” I thought. “I’ll get up when I need to.”  Then I realized I was the only one on the bus.
A Bulgarian lady said to me, “The bus is broken, you go on another bus.  You won’t pay.”
Great.  Now I will miss the bus to Sofia, miss the train to Moscow, miss the reservation at the hostel…into my head popped an image of me lugging my big bag, small bag, thick cloth bag, and a backpack standing on the side of the road with my finger out at 4 am.  To my pleasant surprise, the driver of the bus had called two taxis to take the remaining 5 passengers the remaining 38 km to Skopje.  Instead of being late, the taxi driver with his 130 kmph in a 100 km zone, got us to the bus station in fine time.
The rest of the trip so far is all good.  No more unwelcome surprises.  I am flabbergasted by the degree to which I am understood here in Bulgaria, and all the signs are written in Cyrillic. It’s such a nice change from Albania.  In 1987, I wanted to go to the Soviet Union as part of the International Camp Counselor Program.  The organizers had nothing in the USSR, but said I could go to Bulgaria.  I turned it down because I had studied one year of Russian, not Bulgarian.  As I see now, I would have had a grand time in Bulgaria because even now, 20 years after throwing off the yoke of Soviet domination, people still understand Russian easily.  Bodes well for my experience in Moscow.
So I arrived at 12:30 after a 5.5-hour bus trip, right on schedule.  I didn’t think enough before I withdrew some Bulgarian money.  I had about $50 in BGZ.  So, I bought a couple Newsweeks with L. Armstrong and with Obama on the cover.  Then I bought another razor—the only thing I can think of that I forgot so far.  I walked around town a bit and when I got back to the train station, I started chatting with a friend.  Remembered suddenly that I should tell my employer in Moscow where I am and confirm that I am coming in when I told them I EXPECTED to come in.  Miraculously, Marina was still at work at 7:00 pm and offered to have someone meet me at the train station.  So I have that piece of the puzzle in place. Ya hoo!

My transport to Skopje

The Maxim Hotel.  Maybe my son will go there one day.

The metro here looks like it was built yesterday.  The wide underground passageways were lovely, beautifully clean and uncrowded.  At least when I was there.